Posted!

Join the Conversation

Comments

Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only.
This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you.
You do not need a Facebook profile to participate.

You will need to register before adding a comment.
Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in.

Please be polite.
It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban.
If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them.

OPINION

Profits by Big Pharm should be limited

Our health system is in dire need of reform. It’s been noted that this great country, despite having the best health care professionals in the world, ranks low in offering this needed care to our citizens. Obamacare is a financial failure and hardly any of the inept politicos in Washington seem to have a solution to this continuing problem. This is probably because most of them are under the control of Big Pharm and the insurance companies.

Case in point: I am a senior citizen and enrolled in Medicare. I also have a Medicare supplement with a minimal monthly fee. I do have access to competent doctors and, of course, have to pay a fee when I visit them. That’s reasonable, but recently when I re-ordered a prescription I have for a common Tier l antibiotic, the pharmacy called to tell me that the cost would be $280! It turned out that the pharmacy had failed to note that I did have Medicare and a supplement, so the actual cost to me was only $7. But think about it. Someone who does not have insurance pays an exorbitant price for an inexpensive medication.

Do the math: In my case if I refill the prescription monthly for a year, I will pay out-of-pocket $74 plus $31 per month for my Medicare supplement, for a total annual cost of $372 – plus whatever Medicare deducts from my Social Security each month. This means that the elder citizens among us who can’t afford Medicare and supplemental insurance and may not be eligible for Medicaid are forced to either do without their medication or without eating.

Sanders’ cradle-to-grave socialism is not the answer because we are so far in debt we simply can’t afford it. But we can – and should – put a handle on what profits Big Pharm should be allowed to make. If I didn’t have the benefits I have now, I could get my meds from Canada – or could have until Big Pharm took control of Congress and cut off that supply line.

This country is too overregulated and controlled by the bureaucrats in D.C. And the Democrats and Rebulicrats – these are no longer the Republicans of yesteryear – do not represent nor work for the majority of people.

When I came of voting age in Florida I registered as a Democrat, because in those days there was no Republican presence in this state. I continued to vote as a Democrat until after Truman, who I think was the last good Democrat president we’ve had. And now the Republicans have gone astray.

To my mind, term limitations ought to be imposed. Let’s give the representatives four years instead of two and the senators eight years instead of six. If they’re not smart enough to steal enough money in those, terms they’re probably too dumb to be elected in the first place.